Malignant lymphomas with band 8q24 chromosome abnormality: a morphologic continuum extending from Burkitt's to...

Chromosome abnormality involving band 8q24 is present in the malignant cells in virtually all 'Burkitt's' type malignancies. t(8;14)(q24;q32) translocations have nevertheless been found in certain cases of malignant lymphomas (ML) described as 'small non-cleaved non-Burkitt', 'immunoblastic' or 'histiocytic'. With a view to comparing objectively the histological picture of such lymphomas, we undertook morphometric analysis of seven cases of diffuse ML classed as 'Burkitt's' (three cases), 'immunoblastic' (two cases), 'small non-cleaved non-Burkitt' (one case) and 'large-cell lymphoma' (one case), all exhibiting band 8q24 rearrangement arising from various translocations. Our study substantiates the view that the histologic picture of MLs with 8q24 anomaly fits into a morphological continuum containing 'Burkitt's', 'small non-cleaved non-Burkitt' and 'immunoblastic' lymphomas.